This invention pertains generally to an animal feeder. More particularly, it relates to an animal feeder for delivering feed disks or biscuits used in feeding cattle, deer, or the like.
Typical cattle operations use a vehicle specifically designed and adapted to distribute cattle feed. The problem with such feeders is that they are expensive and often difficult to maintain. A small operator running few cattle typically cannot afford to purchase and maintain that equipment.
An alternative is to drive a truck filled with feed buckets around the ranch and have a person or persons in the back throw the feed out using scoops or some other means. That method is extremely time consuming and often dangerous for the persons in the bed of the truck.
Therefore, systems attempting to overcome the above problems have been designed which are configured to fit in the bed of a small truck and can be actuated by a vehicle operator while driving. Those systems comprise a feed box which uses a gravity feed to deliver the feed disks or biscuits to an opening in the box covered by a single door. To facilitate feed release, the vehicle operator works a mechanism which opens the single door and allows the feed to be released until that mechanism is released and the door is allowed to close. Although those systems overcome many of the above problems, they have a serious operational flaw. Many times after the single door is released to cover the opening and stop feed release, it is jammed open by a feed disk or biscuit. When that occurs, the feed continues to be released until all the feed is gone from the feed box or the vehicle operator stops and manually unjams the door so that it fully closes. The present single door system can be extremely wasteful of feed and can be time consuming if the vehicle operator must continually stop to check and unjam the door.